Once
by savvyliterate
Summary: No one had known she'd been pregnant other than the two of them at first. "Once" had actually been several years of trying, first traditionally, then with help.


**Editor's note:** This story is set four years before the events of A Year in the Life and contains spoilers about how the series ended.

* * *

The tiny, tiny marker wasn't anywhere near traditional. Tucked just to the side of two older markers, it was just far enough inside the plot that no one named Taylor Doose would come along and complain that people had overstepped their purchased space in the Stars Hollow cemetery. The marker itself was a small wooden teddy bear that lay flush to the ground with the words "2012" hand-carved into it. You had to be looking for it to actually see it, and only two people actually knew it was there. Anyone visiting the cemetery on a spring day in 2017 would figure the sober couple standing near the gravestones were paying homage to the husband and wife who were the main occupants of the assigned plot. Instead, they clustered around the tiny marker, holding hands as tightly as they could.

No one had known she'd been pregnant other than the two of them at first. "Once" had actually been several years of trying, first traditionally, then with help. They told their daughters they were escaping on a vacation for a few days, then visited fertility clinics. They didn't want to face their friends, family, and neighbors, all telling them what a risk it was for trying to have a baby when she was in her early 40s and his 50th birthday was just in sight. They didn't need to hear the helpful, but not-helpful comments, because they knew all the risks.

She wanted a baby with his eyes.

He wanted a baby with her smile.

When treatment after treatment failed, they tried harder because they were stubborn and knew that science was at least mostly on their side. She cried when she watched ER reruns, because she had read a magazine article about how the actress who played Dr. Corday had struggled with her own infertility. She pointed to Jane Seymour when Dr. Quinn reruns came on the air and said, "Twins at 45. Just saying. Twins."

Then came the day they beat science and were told that they would have a baby of their own. They floated out of the clinic, he spinning her about in an uncharacteristic move that had her laughing. They began to make plans but heed the doctor's warning that the first 12 weeks were the riskiest. But they'd found out in week 9, and they could see the safety line just within sight. They bought baby books and sneaked them into the house and celebrated.

They were two days into week 11 when the bleeding began.

She had taken a few steps out of the house to the car when the cramps began, driving her to her knees. It'd taken everything to pull out her cell phone, to call him, to call an ambulance. He arrived there just as the EMTs did and held her hand all the way to the emergency room.

But they couldn't stop the bleeding. The baby was gone, and she kept bleeding like her body was trying to purge itself of everything they'd done to it over the past few years. When the doctor told him to call the family, he'd fallen to his knees. When her parents had gotten to the hospital, when their daughters arrived in various states of shock, he ignored them all to pray to every deity there was to spare her. Just spare her.

She had slept for three days after they had gotten the bleeding stopped, after they gave her blood transfusion after blood transfusion. When she opened her eyes and murmured his name, he cried without shame.

"I'm not doing this again," he said hoarsely when they were alone.

"The doctor said …"

"No." He all but yelled it at her, eyes shimmering. "No, I can't do this. I can't. They said you weren't going to make it ... I can handle anything, but not losing you. I just can't lose you." And he laid his head on the bed next to her, shoulders shaking because he knew this was the end of it. There would be no more children, at least children that were a little part of him and a little part of her. But she was going to live, and that was more important than anything.

As she ran her hand through his hair trying to comfort him, she thought about what the doctor had said. That there would be no more trying no matter what. She wept with him.

A week after she got out of the hospital, they had placed the marker that he had carved out of wood. No name, certainly not the date it had all gone wrong. Just the year. The one time they tried. That time had spanned several years, but it was their shot. They clung to each other, cried together, then put it away. Once a year, on that dark day in May, they visited the tiny marker. They would place a single flower on it, cry, and put it away another year. They never said a word.

Five years later, she knelt to place the flower on the marker and ran her fingers lightly over the engraved year. They weren't going to be parents, but they were going to be grandparents. And despite the drama that surrounded her daughter getting pregnant on her own, she knew they'd been given another chance to help nurture a life together.

"It's not so painful this year," she said, and the sound of her own voice sounded odd in the cemetery. "Maybe it's because of that mess with the surrogate or coming to terms with everything last fall. Maybe it's because Rory's pregnant, and we're looking forward to everything that comes with it. It's always going to hurt, but we'll be OK."

"Yeah. We'll be OK." And he drew her to her feet, into his arms, and relished in the wonder that she was alive and they were together.


End file.
